Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the New Columbia Admission Act with 93 original cosponsors, a record number. I am introducing the District of Columbia statehood bill as my first bill for the 114th Congress, an indication of its importance to the residents of the District of Columbia. This bill got its first-ever Senate hearing last Congress, ensuring that statehood is on the congressional agenda. Residents were so encouraged by the prospect of the first Senate hearing on our bill that more DC residents attended than had come to any DC hearing in memory. Their enthusiasm reflects that residents of our nation's capital have always been citizens of the United States but remain the only taxpaying Americans who do not have full and equal citizenship rights. The denial of local control of local matters and of equal representation in the Congress of the United States can be remedied only by statehood.

Therefore, I am introducing the New Columbia Admission Act to create a state from essentially the eight home-town wards of the District of Columbia. This 51st state, of course, would have no jurisdiction over the federal territory or enclave that now consists of the Washington that Members of Congress and visitors associate with the capital of our country. The U.S. Capitol premises, the principal federal monuments, federal buildings and grounds, the National Mall, and other federal property here would remain under federal jurisdiction. Our bill provides that the State of New Columbia would be equal to the other fifty states in all respects, as is always required, and the residents of New Columbia would have all the rights of citizenship as taxpaying American citizens, including two senators and, initially, one House member. The District of Columbia recognizes that it can enter the Union only on an equal basis and is prepared to do so.

The New Columbia Admission Act was the first bill I introduced after I was first sworn in as a Member of Congress in the 102nd Congress in 1991. Our first try for statehood received significant support in the House. In 1993, we got the first and only vote on statehood for the District, with nearly 60% of Democrats and one Republican voting for the New Columbia Admission Act. The Senate held a hearing on various approaches to representation, but the committee of jurisdiction did not proceed further. In the 113th Congress, our statehood bill got unprecedented momentum with the Senate's first-ever hearing on statehood, which was the first congressional hearing held on statehood in more than 20 years, since the House held its hearing on statehood in 1993, and obtained a record number of cosponsors in the House and Senate, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as the other top three Democratic leaders in the Senate. In addition, President Obama endorsed DC statehood in a public forum before the statehood hearing was held.

Statehood is the only alternative for the citizens of the District of Columbia. To be content with less than statehood is to concede the equality of citizenship that is the birthright of our residents as citizens of the United States. That is a concession no American citizen has ever made, and one DC residents will not make as they approach the 214th year in their fight for equal treatment in their country. This bill reaffirms our determination to obtain each and every right enjoyed by citizens of the United States, by becoming the 51st State in the Union.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in recognizing Gwen Benson-Walker, who has served as my Chief of Staff for three years and has been a valuable member of my staff for most of my service in Congress. On December 31, 2014, Gwen transitioned from my office to a well-deserved retirement. Gwen's strong work ethic, intelligence, and enthusiastic personality will surely be missed by her colleagues in the House, the residents of the District of Columbia, and especially my office.

Gwen was not born into the advantages offered to many in our society. Instead, she has always worked her way to success. Aside from her work in my office, Gwen has owned and operated several business ventures. She is a highly-regarded public speaker and a published author.

Gwen Benson-Walker performed with excellence and energy whatever work she was asked to do in my office. She served as a caseworker, and her capacity for hard work and her wise head, led her to roles as scheduler/executive assistant and finally as chief of staff. Even when Gwen moved away from the District of Columbia, she has always returned to our staff upon her return. When not on staff, Gwen was the enthusiastic volunteer coordinator for the annual Children's Christmas Party in the Capitol, lavishing love on the city's low-income children. Most recently, Gwen served as my Chief of Staff, a position in which she flourished, skillfully organizing and running a busy congressional office.

Gwen was a confidant to whom I turned to for advice and a friend and a mentor to staff. She led by example in her professionalism and insistence on excellence, her dedication, generosity, collegiality and good humor. Gwen is off to retirement in Spain, but she leaves too many family members and friends not to return often to her native land. Gwen now becomes a treasured life member of Team Norton.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Gwen Benson-Walker for outstanding service to the House of Representatives and my office, and to the residents of the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in their first votes of the 114th Congress, the majority used their first vote to eliminate the vote in the Committee of the Whole of the residents of your Nation's Capital. That vote on some, but certainly not all, matters had been approved by the Federal courts. The District of Columbia has used this vote in three Congresses, but not when Republicans controlled.

With their large majority, Republicans showed themselves to be small in principle when they voted to eliminate the vote of D.C. citizens, who pay the highest Federal taxes per capita in the Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer a motion that is at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Donald E. Graham for his outstanding contributions to the nation and to the people of the nation's capital. Don Graham is best known for his unique contributions to the field of journalism, but he is also greatly admired in the District of Columbia, his hometown, as a citizen and leader.

For more than four decades, Don Graham has played a significant role in the life of the nation and here in the District of Columbia. Don served his country for two years during the Vietnam War, prior to returning to the District of Columbia and joining the D.C.'s police department, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). At MPD, Don courageously dedicated himself to serving the residents of the District as a patrol officer in the Ninth Precinct in the Northeast section of the District of Columbia. Only after charting his life with these experiences, life changing in themselves, did Don begin his career in professional journalism, in 1971, when he joined the family business as a reporter. Don Graham proceeded to come up through the ranks of the Washington Post and eventually became Publisher of the paper and then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington Post Company. During his tenure, Don Graham shepherded a historic era at the Post. Under his leadership, the Post not only won more than 20 Pulitzer Prizes, it entered into the digital age, launched a website, and began printing in color.

Beyond his stellar accomplishments in journalism, Don Graham also has made notable contributions to the District of Columbia and its residents. He has continued a family tradition of service to the District with special attention to secondary education and higher education. Don was the driving force behind the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program (DCTAG), not only in our ability to achieve federal funding for higher education unique to the District, but in what it has taken to maintain it for 15 years. DCTAG has doubled college attendance in the District of Columbia, allowing D.C. students, who have no state university system, to attend any state university in the country with up to $10,000 per year in assistance. Moreover, Don has gone even further in pursuit of higher education opportunities for D.C. residents. He is a co-founder of the D.C. College Access Program, which has assisted over 13,000 D.C. students and provided over $18 million in scholarships. Most recently, Don has formed TheDream.US, a new scholarship program that seeks to assist undocumented students, who cannot qualify for federal financial aid programs. Don sold the Post to engage in other pursuits, leaving the paper in good hands to continue its distinctive contributions. However, Don Graham's dedicated public service as a private citizen continues to this day.

Mr. Speaker, I could only summarize Donald E. Graham's achievements. Even so, it should now be clear why I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Donald E. Graham for his service to American journalism and for his continuing service to the residents of the District of Columbia.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for all of her hard work on this bill.

District of Columbia voters passed the most restrictive marijuana legalization law in the country, Initiative 71, allowing possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use only. Four States have legalized marijuana. The city was motivated by two independent studies revealing shameful racial disparities, disparities that are endemic, by the way, in the rest of the country as well in marijuana possession arrests. Ninety percent of marijuana arrests here are of African Americans, though Blacks and Whites use marijuana at the same rate in a city that is 50-50 Black and White.

Do not expect residents to tolerate unequal treatment of the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction of Federal tax-paying Americans, and, on top of that, discrimination against African Americans who live here.

I am trying to find a way around the antidemocratic language in the bill that bullies the District of Columbia. Congress must find its way out of the local affairs of the residents of the District, who pay the highest Federal taxes per capita in the United States, while the Member who represents them must stand by and watch every Member of this House vote on a matter affecting her district, except the Member who represents the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the majority to live up to its professed support for the principles of federalism, limited government, and local control of local affairs by not interfering in the local laws of the District of Columbia. The bill limits the District's authority over its local marijuana laws, and prohibits D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women.

I am here to put on the record that the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee's stated view that the bill's D.C. marijuana rider blocks the D.C. marijuana legalization initiative from taking effect is not the view of the entire House, as well as to preserve the ability of the District and its lawyers to review, analyze and interpret the rider's effect for themselves.

Based on a plain reading of the bill and principles of statutory interpretation, it is arguable that the rider does not block D.C. from carrying out its marijuana legalization initiative. The House-passed D.C. marijuana rider, introduced by Representative Andy Harris, and this bill's D.C. marijuana rider are not identical. Unlike the Harris rider, this bill's rider does not block D.C. from ``carrying out'' enacted marijuana policies. D.C.'s Initiative 71, it can be argued, was enacted when it was approved overwhelmingly by voters in November and is self-executing--i.e., it did not require enactment of any rules for its implementation. Therefore, it can be argued that the legalization of small amounts of marijuana in D.C. can proceed.

The District legalized marijuana primarily to combat racial injustice, after two independent studies, one by the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation's Capital and the other by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, found shocking racial disparities in the enforcement of marijuana laws in D.C. In D.C., Whites and Blacks use marijuana at the same rates, and Blacks compromise slightly less than 50% of the population, but Blacks are eight times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than non-Blacks, and 91% of all marijuana arrests are of Blacks. These disparities exist in urban areas throughout the country.

Arrests and convictions for marijuana possession ruin lives, especially those of Black males. An arrest or conviction for marijuana possession often condemns Blacks, particularly those from low-income neighborhoods, to joblessness. Losing the ability to find legitimate work can lead a person to the underground economy, even to selling drugs, rather than mere possession. The Black community itself pays the price because men without the prospect of employment often do not form stable families.

There may be some misconceptions about the District's legalization law. The District has the narrowest and strictest marijuana legalization law in the country. D.C. will not become a regional or national haven for marijuana use or transactions. Unlike D.C., the four states that have legalized marijuana permit the sale and purchase of marijuana. Under D.C.'s marijuana legalization law, possession and home cultivation are permitted, but all the following are not permitted: sales or purchase, retail stores, smoking in public, and possession by those under 21 years of age.

The bill also blocks the District from spending its local funds to provide abortion services for low-income women. We are talking about

100% local D.C. funds, not federal funds. D.C. raises almost $7 billion per year in local funds through taxes and fees. As with marijuana, the District is being singled out for unfair treatment. Seventeen states, including Arizona, Alaska, and West Virginia, spend their local funds on abortion services for low-income women. The bill does not block them from doing so. When the D.C. abortion rider was re-imposed in April 2011, many low-income D.C. women had to immediately cancel their scheduled appointments for reproductive health services, because, unlike wealthier D.C. women, they relied on D.C. to pay for their health care services.

I urge Congress to respect the local laws of the 650,000 American citizens who live in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Mr. Chaffetz, for not only coming forward to manage this bill, but I thank him because he is the sponsor of a bipartisan bill very similar to the bill before us today, H.R. 3463; and I rise in strong support of S. 1691, the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act of 2014, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Tester and McCain.

S. 1691 would enhance the Custom and Border Protection's ability to secure and patrol more than 6,000 miles of our Nation's borders between Mexico and Canada, and 2,000 miles of our coastal waters surrounding Florida and Puerto Rico. It would also respond to the growing threat of cyber attacks. This legislation, which is supported by the administration and the Border Patrol Council, would also save the American taxpayers about $100 million annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill would dramatically simplify the current pay system for our country's more than 21,000 courageous Border Patrol agents by eliminating compensation for overtime through what is called administratively uncontrollable overtime. Under a newly created pay system, Border Patrol agents would have three work schedule and compensation options. They could choose to, one, work 100 hours for each pay period and receive an increase in base salary by 25 percent; two, work 90 hours each pay period and receive an increase in base salary by 12.5 percent; or three, work 80 hours per pay period with no overtime. All unscheduled overtime worked beyond these hours would be treated as compensatory time off, with an annual maximum of 240 hours.

The legislation would also set a minimum staffing requirement requiring that at least 90 percent of Border Patrol agents in any given location work 100 hours every pay period to ensure that Customs and Border Protection has the man-hours it needs to respond to threats and to secure the border.

Under this new system, Border Patrol agents would work millions of hours longer than they do today, which equates to adding 1,500 agents to patrol the Nation's borders.

S. 1691 would require Customs and Border Protection to submit to Congress a staffing plan detailing the agency's operational and staffing requirements to ensure hours worked matched the agency's needs. The Government Accountability Office would also be required to review the plan as an independent check.

This bill would also address concerns regarding past abuses by prohibiting agents at headquarters and training academies and fitness instructors from working more than 80 hours per pay period unless the staffing plan shows a need for these employees to work additional hours.

The legislation would also provide Customs and Border Protection with flexibility to lower the staffing floor set by the bill if the staffing plan shows that the agency can meet its operational requirements in a given location with fewer man-hours.

S. 1691 would also require Customs and Border Protection, in consultation with the Office of Personnel Management, to develop a plan to prevent Border Patrol agents from artificially boosting their retirement annuities by selecting a higher rate of pay than they had historically within 3 years of being eligible to retire. The Government Accountability Office would be required to review this plan and to report to Congress on its effectiveness.

An amendment introduced by Senator Carper also would add provisions allowing the Department of Homeland Security to recruit and retain cyber professionals by granting authority to hire qualified experts on an expedited basis and to pay them competitive salaries, wages, and incentives. The legislation also would require the Department to report annually on the program's progress.

S. 1691 would provide much-needed reform to the compensation of Border Patrol agents and ensure that the Department of Homeland Security has the personnel it needs to deal with increasing cyber attacks.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in supporting this bipartisan legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. O'Rourke), an original cosponsor of H.R. 3463, the House companion version of S. 1691.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), the ranking member of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I want to say how much I appreciate the views of the two Members who have spoken, the bipartisan way in which this bill has been handled in the House and in the Senate, and look forward to more bipartisanship to come, Mr. Chaffetz.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding, and I thank my good friend, Mr. Petri, whom I deeply regret seeing leave the Congress, as well, because he has contributed so very much to this Congress,

particularly in the field of which we speak today.

Of very few Members can it be said that they grew up in the Congress. One could almost say that about Jim Oberstar who came here as a legislative assistant to the Public Works Committee, then ultimately became its chief of staff, and then decided that he could do the whole thing and become a Member of Congress from the Eighth District of Minnesota.

By the time Jim came to the Congress, he had such an early start that he already knew probably all anyone would expect any Member to know. This early start led to what can only be called breathtaking knowledge and, ultimately, achievements in the transportation and infrastructure field.

He became not only my mentor but, literally, the personal mentor of every Member on each side of the aisle and, ultimately, a mentor to any Member of Congress who wanted to know anything about the Nation's transportation and infrastructure.

At the bottom, Mr. Speaker, transportation and infrastructure is a very technical and specialized field. It takes hard work and brilliance to become a master of the roads, bridges, infrastructure, and bike and running trails of this country, let alone the complexities of intermodalism. It was a marvel to see Jim go at intermodalism. I had the opportunity to see him offer visionary leadership on intermodalism here with Union Station in Washington, D.C., and around the country.

Mr. Speaker, Jim came to subcommittee hearings almost all the time and participated in these hearings with the same depth as the chair of the subcommittee. He never let his encyclopedic knowledge wither.

Mr. Speaker, I have been on the committee ever since I came to Congress in 1991. I can say without any compunction that, if you were around Jim, no matter where you sat in the committee room, you could not avoid his kindness, his warmth, and his depth. Sometimes Jim may have told you more than you wanted to know about transportation and infrastructure, but at the end of the day, you were glad that you listened because you heard him speak, sometimes playfully, in French-- he always understood you had better keep using what you once had--but always offering the benefits of his knowledge, and using his great intellectual and personal gifts to bring us all in to the field he had mastered. No wonder Minnesota elected him to serve so long that he became the longest serving Member from the State.

As we struggle still for a highway bill, I hope we will not forget this great Member who began as an ironworker, worked himself through college as an ironworker, organized unions, and never forgot the roots from which he came, and yet came to this Congress and made himself a friend of anyone who would listen.

I am pleased to be associated with this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring former Congressman James Louis ``Jim'' Oberstar, my friend and mentor, and mentor to thousands. Jim represented the 8th district of Minnesota for 18 terms, from 1975 until 2011, but his breathtaking knowledge and achievements on transportation and infrastructure made him the nation's mentor on these issues.

Born in Chisholm, Minnesota in 1934, Jim was the son of an iron miner and shirt factory worker. He learned at an early age the power of organizing workers to fight for fair wages and safe workplaces, and never forgot his roots in the working class and in the organizations they asked to represent them at the bargaining table. Jim worked in the Minnesota mines to fund his college education, graduating from the College at St. Thomas in St. Paul with degrees in French and political science.

In 1963, Jim started his career on the Capitol Hill. He worked as legislative assistant and chief of staff for former Congressman John Blatnik, who represented Minnesota's 8th district at the time. He also served as chief of staff of the House Committee on Transportation and Public Works for many years. In 1974, Jim was elected to the House, where he was fully prepared to use his already well-developed knowledge of transportation and infrastructure as a member on the House Committee on Transportation and Public Works.

Jim contributed to the work of building and rebuilding the nation's transportation systems--its road and bridge networks, and, as a cyclist himself, its bike and running trails. Jim's encyclopedic knowledge of the field led him to master the complexities associated with intermodalism, the transportation wave of the future. His work, for example, to make the District of Columbia's Union Station truly intermodal, still in progress, will always be emblematic of his visionary leadership.

From the moment I joined the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in 1991, I learned from Jim Oberstar and felt his warmth, kindness and depth. Jim not only led us, he nurtured us. Whether smiling as he playfully spoke French or offering the benefits of his commonsense knowledge, Jim's intellectual and personal gifts left us admiring him as a person and in awe of his knowledge and understanding of the field as a professional. Jim's outstanding work in the Congress led the people of Minnesota to make him the longest serving House member from their state, and Jim served the nation with special distinction at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in honoring Jim Oberstar for his many accomplishments for the 8th district of Minnesota and for his devotion to our nation's transportation and infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I have been working with Mr. Crenshaw, with Senator Casey, and I congratulate them on this bill. But I want to say how deeply I regret that there are extraneous provisions in the bill concerning worker protections and offsets that keep it from being the bipartisan bill that it means to be, or else we wouldn't have seen virtually the whole House on the bill. So I have come to speak for the underlying bill and to hope that those provisions will somehow be swept aside and we can have the bill that I think most who signed on thought they were signing.

We talk on both sides of the aisle, as well we should, about personal responsibility, but what we have been doing until this time was leaving the disabled dependent on their own parents or on charities without any way to liberate themselves from others. I think about the parents of 20-year-old autistic brothers who kept them locked up and had no way to liberate them or to care for them.

Most woeful is dependence on charities who, themselves, get tax exemptions to take care of people who need them, and they do an excellent job. But, if we are going to give a tax break to people who take care of disabled people, surely there should be a tax benefit for them to take care of themselves.

And just consider this: most disabled people, truly disabled people, are unable to find jobs of any kind; but if they do, they will not be the kinds of jobs normally that leave them able to open savings accounts, prepare for their own retirement, and the rest. So even if they were able to be employed, they still, of course, must look to other sources of income

That is why this bill, in many ways, is so sensitive. It doesn't supplant any of the assistance that is necessary, like Medicaid and their own insurance that they may have or SSI.

My own daughter, Katherine Felicia Norton, was the Global Down Syndrome ambassador this year. Katherine will probably not need one of these savings accounts. But I am here this afternoon to speak for all of those who do--and there are millions in our country--and to thank particularly the sponsors for what they are trying to do with this bill.

I thank my good friend for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating Step Afrika! on its 20th anniversary, which will be celebrated on December 4, 2014.

Founded two decades ago, Step Afrika! was originally created as a cultural exchange program with the Soweto Dance Theatre of Johannesburg, South Africa, and has grown to become an internationally recognized dance company.

Stepping is a uniquely American art form that originated on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Step Afrika! is the first professional company dedicated to the art of stepping. Step Afrika! promotes an appreciation for stepping through performances and arts education programs in the District of Columbia, across the rest of the United States and around the world.

Step Afrika! specializes in the use of stepping as an educational tool for young students. Step Afrika! brings stepping and its associated values of teamwork, commitment and discipline to students in classrooms, non-traditional dance venues and performing arts venues. Step Afrika! introduced stepping to the Kennedy Center's Teaching Artist program in 1998, and served as the first step group for the Washington Performing Arts' Concerts in Schools program. In 2005, Step Afrika! earned its first DC Mayor's Arts Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education, in acknowledgement for its expanding role in arts education. Step Afrika! brings stepping to more than 20,000 students each year.

Step Afrika! is also globally renowned. The organization serves as an official Cultural Ambassador for the U.S. State Department. It has represented the United States and countries around the world including South Sudan. Step Afrika! has also provided moral, welfare, and recreation programs for service members overseas in Bahrain and Djibouti.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating Step Afrika!,

its Founder and Executive Director, C. Brian Williams, and the Chair of Step Afrika!'s Board of Directors, Jacqueline N. Francis, M.D. on 20 years of service to the District of Columbia and the rest of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, a new generation of young people of every race is demonstrating nonviolently to make sure that the larger meaning of the Michael Brown tragedy is not lost.

His death has become much more than a moment of anguish. Michael Brown has crystallized the painful experience that had found no outlet until now: the routine stops of Black men by police in the streets of our country because of the color of their skin.

The body-mounted cameras, announced by the President yesterday, are a good and practical beginning. Let's hope that local communities will use this tragedy to assure a new era of genuine collaboration that citizens need with the police who serve and protect them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Marion S. Barry, Jr., the four- term Mayor of the District of Columbia and Ward 8 Council Member, who is remembered for his work as a national civil rights leader and as a creator of post-home-rule D.C. Barry passed away on November 23, 2014.

Born in Itta Bena, Mississippi in 1936, one of 10 children in a family of sharecroppers and one of Tennessee's first black Eagle Scouts, Marion brought his prodigious work ethic to the civil rights movement before coming to the District of Columbia. He left his PhD program in chemistry at Fisk University to help form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), became its first national chairman, and continued to work for civil rights in the District and nationally.

In 1965, Barry moved to the District of Columbia, and was quickly adopted by the city and its voteless residents. Barry used his political gifts and brilliant skills as a community organizer not only in the fight of its residents for jobs, equal rights, home rule, and statehood, but also applied them to the political process to become mayor of the city. He established Pride Inc., which received federal funding as it trained and found jobs for residents. Marion Barry was elected first as a member of the D.C. School Board. He went on to be elected as an at-large Member of the D.C. Council and then became the second home-rule mayor of the District of Columbia, in 1979.

As mayor of the District of Columbia in the first years of home rule, Barry began the work to make home rule work. In his first term in office, Barry, who inherited a $100 million deficit, ordered the first audit in a century. He reduced the city's debt and balanced its budget. He opened employment and business contract opportunities to African Americans for the first time and established a summer jobs program that was to become his signature program. It gave many young people their first work experience, for which thousands still remain grateful. During his four terms as mayor, Barry never forgot his own roots in poverty, becoming an iconic figure, especially to the city's poor even as he worked to build an African American middle class. After his years as mayor, Barry became council member for Ward 8, the lowest-income ward in the city, where he also lived and was continually reelected. In his role as Ward 8 Council Member, Barry strongly supported congressional legislation that transferred valuable federal land, including Poplar Point in Ward 8, to the District of Columbia, and the congressional legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security headquarters, now being built on the St. Elizabeths property located in Ward 8, the first federal complex east of the Anacostia River.

Marion Barry, who blazed his own path of ups and downs, published his autobiography, ``Mayor for Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry, Jr.'', this year. He was loved for his indomitable capacity to keep getting up and rise above controversy and criticism to work for residents of the District of Columbia until his last days.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in honoring Marion S. Barry, Jr., for his many accomplishments for the District of Columbia and for a lifetime of fighting for the oppressed and underserved.

I want to thank my good friend from New York for his leadership this evening--it is the kind of leadership he has provided ever since he has come to the Congress--and for the critique he has just offered.

But I come to the floor this afternoon to try to convert that critique into an understanding of the big picture. Demonstrations have been going on, even though we are days away from the day when the indictment did not come down.

In a country where you haven't seen demonstrations all across the United States for some time, why have demonstrations by young people broken out all across America?

There is a message here that comes from the demonstrations and from the

words of the parents of Michael Brown. His father pleaded that Michael Brown not have died in vain. The people in the streets are there to see that Michael Brown did not die in vain; that probable cause, once again, becomes color blind, to see that, when a young Black man goes into the street, he is not consistently and constantly profiled because of the color of his skin.

These demonstrations show that issues of detention and stopping of Black men, especially Black men in the streets, has been simmering below the surface until this tragedy became a way for it to find an outlet.

The provocative stops in the street--Eric Holder, a former U.S. Attorney, now the Attorney General of the United States, has been stopped in the streets of the Nation's Capitol. And I say to my good friends, this is a progressive city. I cannot imagine what it must be like across the United States.

A young Black man in St. Louis held up a poster, which is all about the big picture. It said: ``We Are All Mike Brown.''

When my son goes into the streets, he is Michael Brown. We want an America so that when he goes into the street, he is like everybody else until he does something wrong and there is probable cause to show it. That does not occur in any city, in any small hamlet in the United States today, and so, yes, this great tragedy has become a vehicle to express that grievance.

There are things that can be done. The President has just come forward with a request for an appropriation for body cameras, a small amount, 260-some million dollars. Body cameras work. We have found that when police have body cameras, they protect the police as well as protecting members of the public.

So as we come to grips with the fact that there was no bill, no indictment, I hope we will not lose our focus on the big picture, that we are, in essence, sending a message to police departments all over the United States.

Even though you think you are not doing it, what we are talking about is endemic throughout the United States. People are laying down in peaceful protest. Yes, they are blocking the streets. I must say, when I was a youngster in the civil rights movement, we tried not to inconvenience people; but, look, this is a wholly different day, and they mean to draw the attention of the entire public and, yes, of police around the United States to just how much of a festering sore unwarranted stops of people of color have been.

I thank my good friend from New York for leading this Special Order. I thank the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for leading us off tonight.

In the spirit of Michael Brown's father, who asked that his son not have died in vain, let us make sure that we support the President's request for a pilot program for providing cameras, that we send the message back home to our police departments, and that we work together to make probable cause colorblind.

I thank my good friend from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the more than 500 volunteers who will gather at the District of Columbia's Columbia Heights Educational Campus Saturday, November 22, 2014, to begin packing and distributing Thanksgiving parcels for Project

GiveBack's 20th Annual Food Distribution. Their efforts provide over 1,500 families in the National Capital Area with wholesome Thanksgiving dinners.

Ransom Miller III founded Project GiveBack in 1995. In its first year, six local families and one shelter received food baskets. Over the next two decades, this small effort grew to serve 3,500 families in locations across the country, including Washington, D.C.; Dallas, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Tulsa, Oklahoma; St. Louis, Missouri; and Denver, Colorado.

Project GiveBack's scope has also grown to include: Children's Toy Drive, to provide toys for children in low-income families; Children's Easter Celebration, to provide a safe and fun atmosphere for children in Southeast D.C. to celebrate the spiritual meaning of Easter; Computer Sponsor Progam, to assist local schools and community organizations in the acquisition of more than 100 laptops and personal computers; and Youth EXPOSURE Program, to connect students of various backgrounds and to expose them to a wide range of experiences that will spark career aspirations, ingenuity, and creativity.

Project GiveBack is achieving its mission to be a vehicle for firms and professionals to give back to the communities where they work and live in by coordinating programs that benefit less fortunate individuals and families, with a focus on children. It is the intent of the organization to uplift communities around the United States mentally, spiritually, and economically.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in commending Project GiveBack's volunteers and sponsors and may they soon join the more than 650,000 residents in our nation's capital in thanksgiving for full representation for D.C. in Congress.